Opening the House for 2013 Season!

Every year during April school vacation, we begin our pilgrimage to Martha's Vineyard to open our little gingerbread.  It has become a tradition to invite our three grandchildren, Ryan, Gabby and Grace,

to join us with Liz coming over mid-week.  This year, when we arrived we were met with no water, it had not been turned on yet.  Barry made a quick call and within an hour the plumber arrived and got our water running.  Whew!  We celebrated in style....dinner at Sharky's.  Ryan and Gabby even tried guacamole.

The week flew by quickly.  Despite Wendy working a couple of days, we were able to get the house clean, make beds, vacuum, and wash all surfaces.  The sticks and leaves around the house were raked and bagged.  The kids had a fantastic time scooting around the Tabernacle, playing games and reading.  Of course, there were visits to Ryan Amusements, Flying Horses, Back Door Dounuts and Ben and Bill's ice cream.   We will always remember Ryan's jokes, playing Uno and being silly.

We were able to do alittle work on the house.  Barry installed a section of angle iron under the house and straighten up one section of house.  Wendy sanded and primed a section under the roof (eves) and section of one of the dog houses.  Not sure you can tell from the picture.  Sometime in the future, we will paint these sections their final colors.

After 1 week together!

An April vacation tradition is to celebrate Liz's birthday at Sharky's (yes we went there twice this week)  It was tons of fun.  We even shared a chocolate chip cookie pie covered with whipped cream and chocolate.

Our new season begins.  We are looking forward to a wonderful summer filled with loads of laughs.

Painting in Our Basement

We have been working on our Gingerbread house this winter from the basement of our Marion house.  Five bundles of cedar shingles were delivered to our off-island home.  In the basement, we primed each shingle on all sides.  That was followed by two coats of the C2 Shaker paint, again on all sides.  Allowing them to dry completely between coats before finally packing them up in boxes for travel to the Vineyard.  They are destined to be nailed to the sides of the house.  Hopefully, it will save time and they will last a long time on the island home.  Now we only need to prime and paint another 15 bundles!  Ugh.....

A New Season Begins

Spring is in the air and thoughts of returning to our little gingerbread consume us!  Despite being away for the winter, we have been working on this year's home improvements.  How you might ask?

One project that started back in the Fall was to hire Mike Mitchell to repair the shingles on the rear of the house.  We have no idea when the chimney on the back of the house was taken down, but it has looked like this for at least 20 years, long strip of tar paper running up the back of the house.  First Mike had to remove the tar paper, exposing numerous surprises underneath including some resident bugs.  After repairing, he wove fire-retardant shingles in the blank area to complete the shingles on the back.  The new shingles were not square, so Mike had to cut each shingle to fit.

This spring, we will power wash the entire back of the house and then stain it the C2 Shaker (tan) color.  The screen door will be painted our wonderful Tamale (red) with the Halifax (blue) trim.  We will need to repaint the trim around the second floor window the Halifax color to match.  Currently, it is the Shaker color.  Add a new porch light, it will look like a new house from behind!

Annual Tech Director's Meeting on MV

Once again this June, Dave Crawford and the West Tisbury School hosted the regional technology directors' meeting. After gathering in Falmouth at 7:30 AM to catch the 8:15 ferry, Steve Kawalski from Apple bought us a cab to get to the school. This year, Dave shared his iPad deployment experience! It was very informative.

We then moved our meeting to 23 Trinity Park for some lunch. Only four of the twelve individuals saw the cottage last year and could appreciate all the changes, but they did! The weather was a bit cool so we stayed indoors. After lunch, we all walked into town for a few minutes and then caught the 1:15 ferry out of Oak Bluffs back home. Of course, the ferry rides to and from MV were spent sharing ideas, apps, and experiences with one another.

It was a fun, informative day. Thanks Dave for hosting and Steve for supporting it. Steve took the picture with his iPhone for the blog!

Good-bye Purple Bedroom

Despite being next door to the Purple Angel, we were not too thrilled with the bedroom at the back of the house that was painted purple. After painting all the rooms on the first floor, the first room upstairs to get a fresh coat of paint was going to be that purple room!

We bought a power painter, hoping it would spray paint inbetween the ceiling slats upstairs. It is a pain to tape and cover everything, but necessary to protect from the overspray. Barry dressed in his hazmat suit, attacked the room. The first coat on the entire room was with a special paint called Gripper. It is supposed to attach to everything. We did a second coat of eggshell ceiling paint that gives it a lovely, reflective sheen. The walls got the ever-present, white down and the trim the brilliant decorator's white. It looks so much brighter. We LOVE it!

Let There Be Light...

One of the ugliest features in our little gingerbread was the 1950's brown lighting fixture in the dining room. A friend who does interior design suggested the first thing we do was switch out that light! It took some time trying to find what we thought would be the most appropriate light for our little house. We looked for something simple, yet attractive. Finally, we settled in on a series of lights that we liked. We purchased the new dining room light, as well as hall lights and kitchen lights.

After ordering them off the Internet, we had many issues actually getting the lights! The order was not complete: the dining room feature was missing! After many phone calls, we got a replacement, only to open it to find it in a million pieces! Finally, we got our light.

Barry installed it and it is stricking yet modest. It is perfect and we enjoy using it to lighten up our family dinners!

The Heat is On....

Remembering the Gingerbread is really a hard-sided tent. There is no insulation or even inside walls. When the wind blows, the curtains wave! We do have heat, a floor unit in the center of the house on the first floor that can really pump out heat. However, we wanted to take our closed up fireplace and use it! We also needed to deal with our chimney that is falling down.

The Plan: take down the top of the chimney and install a gas fired "wood stove" with a stove pipe out the top of the chimney. The results are spectacular. We have a fabulous new stove that is a new heat source and is beautiful to look at. We are really enjoying it.